jar - On Christianity

Some people experience keen self-loathing, sometimes terminally so.

I think most people experience moments of self-loathing.It's not usually a matter of polite conversation, but most intimate truths aren't.

I think you are bordering--nay, trespassing--on sophistry here. The Sophists were famous for being able to persuade you that black was white, only to then change your mind back the other way. I think most people are stuck with themselves, not on themselves, and learn to live with their shortcomings.I don't think people kill themselves out of self-love--they choose death to end intolerable pain, a quite different matter.I don't love myself. I don't hate myself. I've come to terms with my strengths and weaknesses, and I accept the fact that I've done some very good things and some terrible things. I know I am neither the best of persons nor the worst. I try to do better.I find the injunction to love thyself an odd idea if taken without instructive irony: to me, love places an Other above the self.Self-love is a masturbatory, contradictory notion. A strong will to survive--even at the expense of self-delusion--is not the same as self-love.I don't believe Robin loves himself, either. I think he takes good care of himself, by his own lights, but that, too, is another matter.